The 2013 HOF Pre-Integration ballot

The Hall of Fame unveiled the 2013 Pre-Integration Era ballot over the weekend, and it includes a New Jersey connection: Jacob Ruppert -- known as the Yankees owner who acquired Babe Ruth -- is also the man for whom Newark's Ruppert Stadium was named.

The Yankees owned the Newark Bears from 1931-47 (when they moved the franchise to Springfield, Mass.), and Ruppert's name was put on the stadium in 1934. It previously had been Davids Stadium and Bears Stadium. Should Ruppert be elected, the glory days of Newark baseball will be well-represented in Cooperstown (beyond the star players who suited up for the Bears and other teams), after the election of former Newark Eagles owner Effa Manley in 2006.

As for the annual player ballot -- you may have heard of it, what with Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza, Sammy Sosa, Curt Schilling and Craig Biggio eligible for the first time -- an announcement is expected at the end of the month, and any candidates selected for enshrinement will be revealed in early January.

Barry Larkin as an All-Star for the last time

I suppose I'm a couple days late on the Barry Larkin post, but that's because I don't really have anything to add. I never had a strong feel either way for his candidacy, but I suppose I now see him as more a Hall of Famer than not. He was among the shortstops who "changed the position," as they like to say (not the shortstops themselves, saying that, but other people), and he was probably the National League equivalent of Cal Ripken Jr. -- only without the consecutive games played streak or the Q rating. Plus, now the 1990 Reds have a Hall of Famer.

But then I remembered I had this photo -- taken during his last season, when he was named to his last All-Star team. It's one of my favorite shots from that weekend, when I was in Houston to cover the celebrity softball game but got to stay for everything else -- and then fly back to Newark sitting next to one of Tom Gordon's sons before chatting with Harold Reynolds at baggage claim.

The other Larkin memory I have is how he rejected a trade to the Mets in 2000 because they wouldn't give him a three-year extension. I'm not sure Larkin would have been the difference in the 2000 World Series, so in hindsight it looks like a wise move by the Mets considering that Larkin only played more than 70 games once in those three seasons from 2001-03, and Jose Reyes debuted in June 2003.

Coming to terms with an incomplete Hall of Fame

I haven't commented on the Hall of Fame election results from last week, and I wasn't sure I would. But I've been reading about the vote totals, perusing others' opinions -- both those eligible to vote and those not -- and mulling it over in my head lately.

Today, I first had a thought that I might write something, but not about Roberto Alomar or Bert Blyleven. I'm happy for Alomar, who certainly was one of the best second basemen to ever play the game, and his humility in discussing the accomplishment was nice to see. I didn't see Blyleven in his prime, so I can't say whether he was the kind of pitcher you either wanted to see when he came to your city to see greatness (or the guy you hoped your hitters wouldn't have to face). I didn't have a strong opinion of his career one way or the other (though he certainly did).

After I read Mets Police's comments on steroids and the Hall of Fame, I felt I had found my starting point. I think what struck me with that post and what I had been formulating over the past few days is that we saw what happened. We watched with our own eyes the numbers put up by Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro and Barry Bonds and all the others. But we also watched how their arms and torsos and legs -- and heads -- seemed to balloon to sometimes comical proportions. We may have suspected less-than-natural means for those changes, but we let them slide, because the home runs and strikeouts and feats of strength were so much fun to watch. As fans, we have some level of deniability. As for the writers ... those who covered the players, those who entered the clubhouses every day, they probably should've let us know something was up a bit sooner than they did. They chose to let it slide then, but now they choose the hard line.

In keeping these less-than-perfect players out of the Hall, the writers are doing more than punishing the players -- they're punishing those of us who watched these guys play. At the time, we thought, "We're watching a Hall of Famer in his prime." Now those feelings can't be validated. It's one thing to debate McGwire's stats or compare Palmeiro's numbers to his contemporaries' (for this argument, I'm speaking of all players as if they had the numbers that, otherwise, would represent a Hall of Fame career), but to cut off the discussion before it even begins just because you don't like the way he put up those numbers is cheating the game's history. The players' actions may have been unethical, but with the one exception of Palmeiro, whose one positive test came at the end of his long career, what they did -- or what we presume they did -- wasn't against the rules of the game at the time.

So now we're supposed to forget that managers were so afraid of what Bonds could do that they walked him twice as much as the next guy (Hank Aaron) in history and three times as much as nearly every other player ... ever. We're supposed to believe that pretty much anything that happened from the mid-'90s until 2005 -- no matter who did it -- can't be believed. We're never going to know how many players were unethical, but the writers have taken it upon themselves to make that decision for us.

I'm not completely against the writers. There was a time I wanted to be one of them, to be a beat reporter covering a Major League team, but along the way I chose to deviate from the path that might've made me one. There's still a part of me that would enjoy it, and I will probably take their side more than not, but as the years go by and McGwire's percentage falls and Palmeiro and even Jeff Bagwell -- a guy who was hardly suspected when he played and certainly has never been proven to be dirty -- have to start so far in the back of the pack on their first ballot, I think I'd rather they just cut down on some of the gray areas on the ballot instructions. There are plenty of unsavory characters already in the Hall. Sure, some of them may have managed to keep their indiscretions under wraps, but surely the antics of Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle and others were known by some of the writers went ahead and voted for them anyway. It is here where I think Mets Police's suggestion (and I'm sure others have offered it as well) is the compromise to be made: Evaluate the players on their numbers, and if there is some clarification that needs to be noted -- McGwire's admission, Palmeiro's failed test, Sammy Sosa's corked bat -- then it should be engraved on the plaque. It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of the Pristine, the Hall of the Perfect. It's a museum, a place where the good is often presented along with the bad. Contrast -- context -- can help highlight the true greats.

But if there's one thing that bothers me more than anything else -- not just in baseball writers' Hall of Fame voting, but in all walks of life -- it's hypocrisy. In the past week, you've probably read about the ballot submitted by ESPN news editor Barry Stanton. Forget about his checking off the names of Jack Morris, Edgar Martinez, Don Mattingly, Tino Martinez and B.J. Surhoff (and no one else). That's another debate. My problem is with the fact that, in 2002, he resigned from his position as a sports columnist in Westchester, N.Y., after he was charged with plagiarising a Joe Posnanski column.

So the Baseball Writers' Association of America, which takes it upon itself to decide who has the character worthy of election into the Hall of Fame, cannot or will not judge the character of its own membership? What is the difference in Mark McGwire taking androstenedione or steroids to make his job easier and in a sports writer taking another's words to make his own job easier? There's an element of laziness in both acts -- and a character flaw in both of the men who committed the indiscretions.

The writers need to trim the fat on their electorate. This year, a record 581 ballots were cast, meaning a player needed to be named on 436 of them to gain the 75 percent needed for election. I'm not saying it needs to be a hard number, 100 or 200 or whatever. But why should those who no longer cover baseball or work as an editor for an outlet covering the sport -- such as the political cartoonist in Montreal or the college football writer mentioned in Craig Calcaterra's post -- still be asked to judge the merits of baseball players with regard to the Hall of Fame? And if the players are to be judged on their character, shouldn't those doing the judging have to abide by some standards of character? Or are they permitted to live in glass houses without any fear of repercussions?

Nobody's perfect -- not Hall of Famers, not writers, not fans. Yet we may be bearing a disproportionate amount of the burden for their mistakes.

Jamie Moyer HAS played a long time

I was reading this piece on Jamie Moyer over at Seamheads and was struck by a remarkable occurrence, prompted by a tidbit I hadn't remembered: Moyer was one of the players who went with Rafael Palmeiro to the Rangers in the deal that brought Mitch Williams to Chicago. Palmeiro, like Moyer, came up in 1986, but he's now been retired five years and is on the Hall of Fame ballot.

So now get this: Should Roberto Alomar or Jeff Bagwell be elected when the results are announced in January, both players will have started and finished their careers and been elected to the Hall of Fame within the span of Moyer's career. That is, those players debuted after Moyer did (1988 for Alomar, 1991 for Bagwell), retired before he did (2004 for Alomar, 2005 for Bagwell) and were elected before Moyer's retirement. Even though the results are announced in January and the players are inducted in July 2011, the voting takes place in 2010. And even if Moyer's last Major League pitch came on July 20, 2010, he still pitched in the year of election for those players (should they get in). Of course, if Moyer comes back as he hopes in 2012, that will make this whole exercise that much easier.

In any case, it's pretty crazy that a player's career could see its genesis in the form of a Major League debut, conclusion with retirement and denouement in induction to the Hall of Fame. But it's happened before.

Nolan Ryan played in more seasons, 27, than any player in history. He debuted with the Mets in 1966 and retired with the Rangers in 1993, throwing his last pitch on Sept. 22, 1993. In between, five players came, went and were enshrined. Ryan's Mets teammate Tom Seaver debuted in 1967, last pitched in 1986 and was inducted in 1992; Johnny Bench came up in '67, retired in '83 and was inducted in '89; Rod Carew came on the scene in '67, retired in '85 and went into Cooperstown in 1991; Reggie Jackson debuted in '67, retired in '87 and received his plaque in '93; and finally, Rollie Fingers threw his first pitch in 1968, retired in 1985 and went into the Hall with Seaver in '92.

This is by no means a definitive list (for one thing, Roberto Clemente's untimely death and the waiver of the five-year waiting period that allowed his induction in 1973 meant that Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Al Kaline, Harmon Killebrew and Hank Aaron all debuted before Clemente and were still playing the summer of his induction), but it's pretty remarkable that the careers of some players, like Moyer or Ryan, can span the career and induction of others.

Following through on a long-delayed plan

I've got a few posts planned for this week and I want to roll them out gradually to try to re-establish some sense of regularity here. I figure if I can write ahead and set things to post at regular intervals, such a backup plan might allow me to write more timely posts in between. And to start off this new approach, I've got what I'm calling Enabler Week. Thanks to two other bloggers out there (whose blogs you'll find in the right column under Road Games), I fulfilled a childhood wish this weekend and over recent weeks have begun a new collecting endeavor.

First with the childhood wish; the endeavor will be a subsequent post. The height of my baseball-card collecting years was 1987-90, so deemed because those were the Topps sets for which I had the most cards, the result of furious wax-pack buying sprees. (I say "had," because earlier this year, overcome by a wave of nostalgia, I actually added to my stash when I purchased on eBay a lot of five unopened Topps boxes -- one for each year from 1986-90.) Looking back, it's hard to believe that my active collecting years was such a short period, because at the time it seemed like my entire life. But once through my freshman year of high school, the interest in collecting waned. My passion for the game remained, but my friends and I had less interest in spending money on cards and more on hanging out together -- and with girls. It was around this time (the early '90s) when the bubble burst on the card industry, not to mention the proliferation of sets that made it more complicated to figure out what to collect. It used to be a lot easier when Topps had one set of 792 cards, not various series, refractors, blasters, relics, variations and autographs. Overwhelmed, we moved on to other things.

But I never threw out any cards, and my mom knew better than to dispose of them. I collected a few autographs, as well, going to local signings and trying my hand at mailing cards out to players with SASEs included. That yielded mixed results, among them -- as best I can tell, since I've never bothered with authentication -- full participation from Orel Hershiser, partial from Mike Schmidt and a clubby's stamping Kevin Seitzer's autograph on the two cards sent to Kansas City.

And it may be that my collecting habit sparked my interest in photography. On every trip to the local card/stamp/coin shop, I'd flip through the album of 8x10 photos, eventually buying a few. Among them were Brooks Robinson, Gregg Jefferies and Mark McGwire. Looking back now, I can't remember if I bought them thinking I'd try to send them off for autographs and hope they'd be returned or if they were purchased in anticipation of an upcoming signing or a ballpark attempt at an autograph. I feel like the Robinson photo was bought for a specific signing -- either a local show or a by-mail signing -- but for some reason, I never followed through with it. Yet I kept the photos in their clear plastic pages, stored safely in a binder with other photos and my small collection of autographed cards.

Which now brings me to the enabler part. It began with a post last month by Paul on his eponymous Paul's Random Stuff blog. He mentioned MAB Celebrity Services' monthly show at a hotel in Secaucus, and when I saw that Brooks Robinson and Gregg Jefferies would be part of their lineup this past Saturday, I put it on my calendar. It wasn't until Saturday morning -- once I remembered that the show was that day -- that I decided to head over and complete my autograph mission. Secaucus is conveniently 15 minutes from my house, so in leaving at 11:30 -- the time Robinson started his 90-minute signing window -- I still arrived with plenty of time to buy my tickets and browse some of the vendors while waiting for my number to be called.

Robinson was very pleasant and cordial and a delight to meet. He took the time to look each visitor in the eye and say hello, extending his hand for a shake. He stood up every time someone slid around the end of the table for a photograph when he easily could have remained seated. He may be 73 years old, but he didn't use that as an excuse. Haters may say anyone can be cordial for 90 minutes when he's being paid (and at $49 each for the cheapest level, Robinson was one of the best-paid there), but not all of them are. Robinson shook my hand as I put the photo on the table and told him a brief version of this story (about buying the photo 20 years ago but not getting it signed until this day) and he asked if I wanted anything particular written on it, though I can't recall if MAB was charging extra for personalization with him. I told him I'd be happy with his HOF 1983 postscript. I love how Hall of Famers use that.

When he finished signing -- left-handed, I might add, something I didn't know about the right-handed thrower and hitter -- he shook my hand again and wished me a happy holiday, making him the first person to do so this season, two weeks ahead of Thanksgiving. Robinson's autograph pushes my confirmed Hall of Fame signatures to seven -- Robinson, Nolan Ryan, Ferguson Jenkins, Rollie Fingers, Johnny Mize, Bob Feller and Bob Gibson -- and the possible list to 12. The unconfirmed are Kirby Puckett (two cards mailed to him when he played), Mike Schmidt (four cards mailed to him, all returned but only one signed, along with a signed form letter), Johnny Bench (a card bought from that favorite card shop), Gary Carter and Cal Ripken Jr. (signed postcards sent by the team when I wrote to them as a kid asking for pocket schedules). I'll devote future posts to these others.

Because of the small show and as a failsafe to prevent me from spending too much money, I went home after getting Robinson's autograph because Jefferies wasn't signing until 2 p.m. I did make a few purchases, but those will be addressed later this week when I reveal the second enabler. I returned to Secaucus right at 2 o'clock and went back to a dealer from whom I'd bought two cards earlier in the day. I realized there were a couple others he might have so I wanted to peruse. Just as he was handing me my change, my number came up for Jefferies. This line moved a lot faster than Robinson's, perhaps because few people asked for photos and partly because Jefferies focused more on signing and telling the MAB rep taking tickets at his table some tale about his trade from the Phillies to the Angels in August 1998. I'm not saying he was a jerk, but he was no Brooks Robinson.

Jefferies was one of my absolute favorite Mets as a kid, maybe because he was a small guy who I could relate with. I remember a minor league update on WFAN during a pregame show sometime in 1987 when I first heard his name, and from that point on, I kept his name in mind, then followed him closely when he hit the majors in '88. But now, thanks to a career in which I've met ballplayers and, in college and from being in New York, other celebrities, I've become desensitized to becoming starstruck. So going in, I wasn't getting my hopes up for a gregarious, beaming welcome from Jefferies.

So while the signatures weren't cheap, I'm glad I got them, and I've already got my eye on some upcoming shows, all thanks to Paul and his autograph efforts (not to mention his rundowns of upcoming signings). Thanks for the unintentional assist, Paul!

On a personal note ...

Matt and me and Nolan

I first went to Cooperstown in 1988, when my family stopped over for a night in August on our way to Boston and Maine for our regular summer vacation. The second trip came in 1992, when we went -- and my sister and I each brought along a friend -- for Tom Seaver's induction into the Hall of Fame. That's the origin of this photo, Matt and myself next to a display after a long day of touring the Hall. I've long wanted to go back, not really caring when, and in fact thinking I'd do it in the offseason, when it would both be less crowded and, at least for lodging, cheaper (not to mention easier to reserve).

Then, rather suddenly last Saturday, it was determined that Casey and I will be going to Cooperstown on Thursday to spend the night. Friday is our fifth anniversary and in discussing what we wanted to do this year, we weren't really keen on another fancy dinner in New York City, which we've done for each of the past four. Last year, after reading a story in The Times about Block Island just after the summer season, I suggested that a four-day weekend on the island would be a good fifth-anniversary trip. But as September approached, we re-evaluated and determined four days away wasn't in our best interests, so we started thinking of other options.

Casey brought up the idea of using our National Parks Pass, bought in March and thus expiring in March 2011, but there's not much outside of NYC/NJ within four hours where we could use it. So I started putting into Google Maps random destinations to see how long the drive was from our home. Gettysburg fit within four hours, as did Cooperstown. I suggested the latter but played it down. Casey, after briefly perusing some dining options in town, was more enthused. "Let's do that," she declared.

So we booked a room at the Tunnicliff Inn, with plans to drive up on Thursday after Casey finishes work at noon, walk around town to decide where to eat, and then spend Friday at the Hall. We don't have a set time to be back, other than before too late Friday, because Casey has to work on Saturday morning.

Strangely, though, each day seems to have brought a new Cooperstown connection since we decided on this quick getaway. First, the Hall will be featured on Wednesday's "Ghost Hunters" on SyFy. And then there was this post on Baseball-Reference about the recent visit by one of the site's editors.

Before deciding on Cooperstown, we consulted the traditional anniversary gifts and saw that the fifth is wood, but that didn't give us any ideas. So now we're wondering if we should mark the occasion with a personalized bat. It's much better than the designated modern gift: silverware.

Beyond our lodging, the Hall of Fame and Friday's lunch, I don't think we'll plan much ahead of time. With Thursday morning now open, we can leave earlier and get into town to have a slightly later lunch on Thursday afternoon, then take more time to walk around a bit. We'll decide where to eat that night after we've checked out a few places in person. That Baseball-Reference post already has me eager to walk around the village for the first time in 18 years and see how it stands up to the memories of my 16-year-old self. And I wonder if I'll remember anything from inside the Hall that isn't in the photos I took or the video Matt and I made as we walked the galleries. (A video I hope to soon digitize, though it won't be before this trip.)

A quiet, start-of-autumn getaway to the shores of Otsego Lake should be the perfect break from hectic city/suburb life and a nice chance to recharge before the craziness of October.

The shadows are creeping in

Some fans and beat writers are looking at this road trip to Atlanta and Philadelphia as a make-or-break stretch of six games in the Mets' season.

But I think it's already broken.

This isn't just about yesterday's debacle against the D-backs, which, had things been a bit different (say, New York had won five out of six from Arizona, with yesterday being the one loss), might otherwise be looked at as just a learning experience for Jon Niese. The young lefty still threw 51 of 83 pitches for strikes and should soon learn how to get a left-hander out even after two straight hits. Mets Police and Metsgrrl (not to mention a kick-ass headline on the game recap) have summed up pretty well how I felt sitting out there in Queens yesterday. I'm sure there are plenty of other good summations, but I can't bring myself to read anymore.

But yesterday's events confirmed for me what might be the core problems of this team.

I'm not part of the camp that thinks a roster overhaul is in order, that trading David Wright or Jose Reyes or Carlos Beltran is what is needed to get things going in the right direction. Those guys -- particularly Wright and Reyes -- are the core and that's who they need to build around to get back on top of the NL East. And I'm glad they stood their ground at the trading deadline, not making a move for the sake of making a move (which it sounds like this one guy behind me yesterday wanted to see). Dealing a few mid-level prospects for a Jake Westbrook or Ted Lilly or Chad Qualls wasn't going to make up four or five games in the standings. Besides, it sounds like whoever the Mets contacted to sniff out a trade was asking for Niese or Ike Davis -- or both -- as a starting point. No, thank you.

And I'm not sure the Mets had too many tradeable veterans to send away to bring back a young player or two. Pedro Feliciano was probably the most attractive candidate, and maybe he could have been moved, but relief pitching is at a premium, and if this team is a few offseason moves away from fielding a legitimate contender, Feliciano is going to be part of that foundation. Francisco Rodriguez is probably untradeable (and, I'm sorry, for all his faults, he's not really any worse than most other closers. Overpaid? Sure, as are pretty much all ninth-inning guys not named Rivera). Jeff Francoeur? He can be dealt in August -- and he just might be, once we all get a look at the standings on Sunday night.

So I'm fine with the lack of activity at the deadline, because these three key problems aren't solvable in a July trade or two.

1.) Three particularly bad contracts are holding Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel hostage. That is, they don't have the flexibility to improve the roster with the three-headed albatross of Oliver Perez, Luis Castillo and Alex Cora. Ollie and Castillo are untradeable, unless the Mets get another bad contract back in return. And for the money they're making -- at least that Perez is -- it's hard to designate them for assignment and eat that money, whether or not you believe the team is in financial straits because of the Madoff mess. Still, no one who was at the ballpark yesterday would care if they heard tonight that one or both was booted off the roster. And Cora, as a versatile backup infielder (even if he can't hit), isn't a bad contract for one year, but when he's starting 41 of the 61 games he's appeared in (numbers that should, at the very least, be reversed) and when he has a terrible vesting option that becomes guaranteed as soon as he plays in that 80th or 81st game, then it's a bad contract, because then you're stuck with a .200 hitter again next season.

The one tarnished silver lining I can find in these deals is that Omar stood his ground when Bengie Molina wouldn't take the Mets' one-year offer. (Though Cora's deal was also done this offseason, which doesn't help matters.)

2.) The faith in John Maine in the rotation -- and, relatedly, Perez, too -- helped sink the Mets this season. I don't think there was any question as to whether Maine would make the rotation this spring, or that he would be the No. 2 starter. Maine's ceiling may have once been as a No. 2, but he had done nothing since 2007 to show that potential. Going into spring training with Maine and Perez as the Nos. 2 and 3 didn't help. A contending team needs those slots to be rock-solid firm, not based on potential and hope for a bounce-back season. Mike Pelfrey and Niese certainly pitched like consistent top-of-the-rotation starters in the first half, but if Pelfrey doesn't get over this dead-arm period (or whatever it is) and Niese doesn't rebound from Sunday, the Mets can't go into 2011 with those two as the rock-solid Nos. 2 and 3.

This has been discussed elsewhere this season, but the Mets are pretty lucky that they didn't overpay (in dollars or years) for some of the free-agent pitchers that we were all clamoring for in the offseason, myself included. Jason Marquis hasn't pitched for the Nationals since April, I think; Ben Sheets is done for the year; and John Lackey would have been way too many dollars for certainly too many years. Joel Pineiro (10-7, 4.18 for the Angels) and Jon Garland (10-7, 3.60 for the Padres) would have helped keep Hisanori Takahashi in the bullpen, but would either have really made that much of a difference? (Both might have, but then Niese would be something like 12-2 for Buffalo right now.) Which brings us to my third key problem that has soured 2010 ...

3.) Why can't this team win on the road? At 20-33, the Mets are playing .377 ball on the road. Want to know who has better winning percentages away from their home parks? Toronto, Kansas City, Cleveland, Oakland, Milwaukee, the Cubs, Houston, Houston, Colorado and the Dodgers. The Mets are playing .635 baseball at home, better than everyone but the Braves, Phillies, Yankees, Cardinals and Rockies. If the Mets could play just close to .500 on the road (I'm talking 26-27 at this point, if they'd won six more games -- how about three in Arizona, one in Puerto Rico, and one each in San Francisco and Los Angeles), they'd be a half-game out of first as they begin a three-game set at Turner Field.

With such a difference in home and road winning percentage (at a .257 difference, the only teams with bigger gaps are the Tigers, .346; Braves, .285; Cardinals, .275; and Rockies, .276; and Atlanta leads baseball with a .723 winning percentage at home!) I don't know how that can be explained by anything other than the manager and coaching staff. As explained in Nos. 1 and 2, Manuel is a bit hamstrung because of some of the players on his roster, but if they can win 63 percent of their games at home, they shouldn't be losing 63 percent on the road. As much as I love Howard Johnson, he has to shoulder some of the blame when the team is shut out three times on the same road trip for the first time since the early '90s, or whenever it was. And then they added a fourth shutout for good measure. And Manuel, who I gave credit to when he had the team in first place back at the end of April and within half a game as late as June 27, has to do something to get this club a winning road trip. His refusal to use K-Rod for anything but a save situation in a tie game on the road is maddening. What's the point of keeping Rodriguez for a save situation that only might appear when Ryota Igarashi or Raul Valdes is taking the loss in the bottom of the ninth or 10th?


And so that's how I see it. Others may not agree, but for some reason I like to find two or three points that seem to be the root cause of the problem. I guess it's something of a baseball butterfly effect -- had things been different in these particular instances, then maybe, just maybe, everything would have turned out better in the end (or to this point).

As for this road trip, I can't see how anyone thinks this time will be any better than the last one. It's now August. There are two months left in the season, 29 home games and 28 road games (if I counted and subtracted correctly in my head). If the Mets play at their current rates at home and on the road, they'd go 51-30 at Citi and 30-51 on the road. Yes, folks, that's a .500 season. Except, for this road trip to "make" them, they need to do no worse than 4-2. There's not enough time left to break even in six games in Atlanta and Philly, not when there is another trip to each one still to come. They have to make close ground, winning two out of three at each stop this week. They can't afford any steps back.

And I don't think they can do it. The sun may not have set on this season, but it's casting some very long shadows.

My one final thought to wrap up this discourse is this: After the heartbreak of 2007 and '08 and the frustration of nothing going right in 2009, I just wanted a competent, competitive team. I let myself get excited over first place at the end of April and half a game out five weeks ago. I enjoy it when my teams are winning and I can't stand to criticize and nitpick their faults. I know someone who gets worked up over every at-bat, nearly every pitch. I just can't be a fan like that. I just wanted a team that had a chance to finish a strong second in the division, to look down on the Braves or Phillies, even if it meant the other one was on top and some team from the West was the Wild Card winner.

So much for that. Guess I'll have to look for some room on that Reds bandwagon. It'd be nice to see some fresh blood make some noise in October.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Visiting the Hall

It's Hall of Fame weekend, an event I've been to once and hope to get to again soon.

The first visit was in 1992, for Tom Seaver's induction. I'm too young to remember all but a little of Seaver's career. Though I should've been aware of his 300th win at Yankee Stadium, I wasn't, and I only remember shots of him on TV sitting in the Boston dugout during the 1986 World Series, injured and unable to pitch. And then I remember the following spring when he attempted one final comeback with the Mets. But I'd done a book report in school on a biography of Seaver and my parents had been big fans, so we took a family trip to Cooperstown 18 years ago this weekend.

I have few pictures from that weekend, most of which are from the Hall of Fame game at Doubleday Field. Instead, my friend Matt (he and his sister, Christy, came along with us) and I spent the weekend using a friend's borrowed video camera to record the events. I'm hoping to digitize that footage this weekend. The bulk of the Cooperstown photos I do have are from a previous visit, when my family stopped over for a day on the way to our usual August vacation in Maine. Unfortunately, those shots were taken with my cheap first camera, a Kodak disc contraption, and some low-quality scans are the best I could do from some low-quality prints.

I haven't been back to Cooperstown since '92, and I long to get back. I keep considering a return -- ideally in the crisp, cool fall or during the quiet, cold winter -- and may finally make a point of it before next season. I'd also like to take advantage of the research opportunities at the library, but first I'd have to narrow my focus or I'll be overwhelmed. And in addition to any visits in the near future, I've also set aside induction weekend a few years into the future, when Mike Piazza's Mets-cap-clad visage is unveiled.

Explanations out of the way, here is how I saw the Hall as a soon-to-be-12-year-old in 1988 and the Hall of Fame Game (which I've already recounted) in 1992.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Which cap for Piazza?

Rob Neyer on ESPN.com and Pat Andriola on The Hardball Times speculate that Mike Piazza will one day sport a Mets cap when he's inevitably inducted into the Hall of Fame. Their reasoning is based mostly on statistics and legacy, with no comments from Piazza.

I, too, think his bronzed likeness will someday sport the interlocking "NY," but I'm basing my belief on the man himself, hoping he was sincere in October 1998 and can be taken at his word.

''When I looked inside, I realized this is where I wanted to be,'' Piazza said. ''When you're not successful here, it's tough. But when you win here, it's twice as good as anyplace else.

''And if I happen to be so fortunate to go in the Hall of Fame, it's definitely going to be in a Mets uniform.''

I hope Piazza sticks to that statement, and I hope we get to find out three years from now.

Hall of Fame electioneering

Sixty-three-point-four.

That's the magic number, 63.4 percent. Top that, and your chances of gaining access to a club many of us could only dream of entering are greatly improved.

Seventy is even better. Seventy is a nice, round number, and seeing that crooked 7 at the beginning of the figure must send a jolt of euphoria through someone who is hoping for that immortal benchmark: the 75 percent of the vote needed to gain election to baseball's Hall of Fame, which Andre Dawson today learned he received. The Hawk has reached baseball's ultimate perch.

Now, while 70 percent doesn't get it done, every player to get 70 percent has been elected the following year. As for the 63.4, that's the percentage that Gil Hodges got in his final year of eligibility, 1983, and it remains the highest figure a player has received without eventually being elected. Gary Carter (64.9 in 2001), Bruce Sutter (66.6 in 2005), Jim Rice (64.8 in 2006), Goose Gossage (64.6 in 2006) and Andre Dawson (65.9 in 2008) have all topped 63.4 in the past 10 years and eventually received the call. And Gossage and Rice each found himself in that 70-74.9 percent purgatory in the year immediately before each finally got his call.

I agree that Dawson is a Hall of Famer, and he probably should've gotten in sooner. I remember the symmetry of Dawson hitting his 300th home run at Shea Stadium early in April 1989, after his former Expos teammate Carter had hit his 300th at Wrigley the previous August, after a nearly three-month drought following No. 299 (how great is Baseball-Reference's HR Log?) It might've been nice to see the two former Expos share the same stage (and hopefully Dawson becomes the second to go in wearing an Expos cap), but the gap in their inductions means one more January week and one more summer weekend when we can remember the team that used to play in Montreal.

I can't really get into the Bert Blyleven debate because I don't remember much of his career. I started following baseball only during his last couple of seasons, so all I have to go on are the stats -- and I'm not sure the stats hold up to Hall of Fame standards. Roberto Alomar, however, I do remember, and I think he's easily a Hall of Famer -- and should've been in on his first ballot. He was a Gold Glove second baseman who could switch-hit. Early in his career, he had 40-50-stolen-base speed. Later, when his legs lost a little juice, he became a 20-homer, 30-steal keystone. Penalizing him for the spitting incident is petty when you consider some of the transgressions by athletes that we overlook. And if John Hirschbeck, the umpire who was spit upon, can forgive him, what grudge do the rest of us have to hold? It's not as if Alomar harmed anyone peripherally.

Both Blyleven (74.2 percent this year, just five votes short of election) and Alomar (73.7) should be in next year, if the 70-percent trend holds. And both might've made it this year if not for the five blank ballots (particularly in Blyleven's case) or those voters who, on principle, don't vote for players on their first ballot. (If Rickey Henderson can't get 100 percent of the vote, no one ever will -- unless Ken Griffey Jr. somehow manages to capture Osama bin Laden between now and his first ballot, transports him to the U.S. and forces him to stand in the batter's box without a helmet and face Justin Verlander throwing inside heat.) Not voting for a player on the first ballot on principle is ridiculous. That's what the five-year waiting period is for, so that a player's career can be evaluated and put in perspective with those he played with and against.

The blank ballots actually bother me more than the token votes thrown at players like Robin Ventura, Ellis Burks, Eric Karros, etc. (Seriously, if you turn in a blank ballot -- or at least if you are a serial blank balloteer -- you should have your voting privileges revoked.) Writers are human and, despite what they claim or write, enjoy the drama and excitement of the games. If a player was a good, reliable source of quotations during his career or provided some truly memorable moments, why not honor him with a vote in what you're certain will be his only year of eligibility? I was a big fan of Robin Ventura when he was with the White Sox, I loved it when he came to the Mets, and in my mind, his "grand-slam single" -- in extra innings, in the rain, in the NLCS, in New York, against the dynastic Braves -- is worth one vote from one writer out of 539. One MLB.com writer and six others agreed. I don't know what the instructions on the ballot say, how they phrase what each writer's responsibility is with his or her vote, but with up to 10 slots to fill, a tip of the cap to a personal favorite doesn't bother me. Were there only three or five slots per ballot, it'd be a different story.

We'll have plenty to discuss in the coming years of Hall of Fame balloting, what with Rafael Palmeiro, Barry Bonds, Rogers Clemens and Sammy Sosa allowing us to really delve into how to treat the Steroid Era. I think as the years go by and I get older, I'll have more passionate opinions on Hall of Fame arguments, because with all the changes in the game, plus the steroids, comparing players to their eras will be more important than comparing them to other Hall of Famers. While I understand the thought, I don't get why it should matter who is joining the ballot in future years. It's not like Barry Bonds' arrival will take a spot away from where Jack Morris' name could go.

But Jay Mariotti had better not be giving Sammy Sosa a vote on the first ballot if he couldn't be bothered to find a Hall of Famer out of this year's group.

Martin Brodeur and a baseball record (Huh?)

I'm not the biggest hockey fan, but I do enjoy the sport -- mostly live or during the playoffs, because really, why play 81 games when the postseason is about half that (give or take)? But I have had my moments of devotion to the sport, beginning in 1995, when the New Jersey Devils won the first major sports championship in the state's history. That was a lot of fun to watch, except for the part when they had to have the "parade" around the parking lot of the Meadowlands. Now, at least with the new -- and very nice, I must say -- arena, they can have the parade in an actual city. The city's Newark, but still. They can parade from the NJ Performing Arts Center, past the Bears' minor league baseball stadium and over to the Pru for the rally. That'll be nice enough.

In fact, the Devils' three Stanley Cups have come in interestingly regular intervals, at least in terms of my life. The first, in '95, came when I was in college. The second, in 2000, was during my first job, at the Asbury Park Press. I remember sitting on the floor of the newsroom in front of the big TV in the sports department. It was a Saturday night, we'd already put the section to bed and the game was in overtime in Dallas. Basically, we were waiting around for the game to end to put out a late edition -- either saying they were going to Game 7, or that the Devils had won the Cup. When Jason Arnott scored in OT, my arms shot up as I yelled "CUP!" and we got back to work.

And their last title, in 2003, came while I was working for a magazine. I watched at home, then went to Modell's down the street the next morning to buy a championship T-shirt to wear to work the next day.

So the Devils won once while I was in college (a four-year stretch), once while I worked at the newspaper (I was there for four years) and once while I worked at the magazine (I was there 3 1/2 years). March will mark four years at my current job, and though the Stanley Cup Finals aren't until May/June, they'd pretty much hit the mark if they can pull it off. Four Cups in 15 years -- or an average of one not quite every four years -- would be quite impressive.

Anyway, there's a reason I'm writing about hockey on my otherwise erstwhile baseball blog -- Martin Brodeur's NHL-record-setting 104th shutout last night. Marty's excellence and longevity has made him into one of the greatest goalies -- or THE greatest goalie -- in hockey history. I know there's an argument that he's had it easier than others because of the Devils' style of play, that their trapping zone defense puts less pressure on the goalie, but I'm not enough of a student of the game to be able to argue that point one way or the other. And I realize that goalie equipment and training today is much more advanced than it used to be, but that also rules changes in recent years have been to goalies' detriment. Again, that's about the extent of my knowledge of the situation. But that's nothing different than what we have in baseball when we try to compare eras or determine the greatest hitter (Ruth, Williams, Bonds, Pujols?), pitcher (Big Train, Koufax, Seaver, Ryan, Maddux, Clemens?) or team ('06 Cubs, '27 Yankees, '75 Reds, '98 Yankees?).

But now, Brodeur -- and here I'm getting to the baseball tie-in (finally) -- has a chance for the all-time North American sports shutout record. Walter Johnson threw 110 in his Hall of Fame career, and Brodeur is now just six away from that mark. I suppose if we really wanted to pin down the continent's career shutout mark in all sports where individual players are credited with the statistic, we should dig up the record for professional soccer circuits like the North American Soccer League and others like it to see if any of those goalkeepers had more than 110 clean sheets (the Major League Soccer record, as of this writing, is 84). Though the nature of the game makes shutouts much more frequent in soccer than in baseball or hockey, I'm willing to amend this post should someone point me to those stats, but I haven't been able to find them just yet.

So congratulations on your hockey record, Marty. Only seven more to go to set a new mark for the continent.

Stories of Seaver and Ryan on the Network

I've been watching MLB Network here and there, both at work and at home, and I really should start keeping it on in the background or as my default channel for idle loafing. ("Idle loafing" -- not oxymoronic, just hyper-loaf-like.)

First, there was the second part of an interview with Tom Seaver on "MLB Tonight" in which he talks about the Hall of Fame's Induction Weekend. The best part -- his favorite part, he said -- is the Sunday night dinner. There are only three types of people allowed into the room: Hall of Famers, the Commissioner of baseball and the president of the Hall of Fame (and, presumably, the catering staff, so I guess that's four types).

If I could have access to any room anywhere in the world -- perhaps at any time in history -- that room would be in the top five. Off the top of my head, I'd add: Independence Hall when they were hashing out the Declaration of Independence; the Oval Office at some seminal moment in history, perhaps when FDR learned about Pearl Harbor (or when, if the legend is true, he learned of a possible attack ahead of time and decided to let it happen to justify entering the U.S. into World War II); a pop-culture moment or two, like when Bruce Springsteen met Clarence Clemons or played "Thunder Road" for the first time, or when Jack Kerouac met Allen Ginsberg or Neal Cassady; and the ballroom or wherever Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "Mountaintop" speech the night before he was killed.

But back to the Hall of Famers dinner. Can you imagine that room? Seaver, Bob Gibson, Stan Musial, Reggie Jackson, Mike Schmidt, Ralph Kiner, Hank Aaron. And so many more. But maybe I wouldn't want to be in that room some day -- because it would mean I'd have to leave.

Later on the Network -- now, actually, as I wrap up at the office -- is a re-airing of Nolan Ryan's seventh no-hitter, from May 1, 1991. I remember reading about it the next morning. In New Jersey, of course, we didn't get the game on TV, and there was no MLB.TV or Extra Innings package on cable (not that my family had cable in 1991). It doesn't even appear that it aired locally in Texas. I've only been half-listening, but I got the impression that this was the Blue Jays broadcast. Part of what led me to that conclusion was one announcer -- the color commentator, so presumably a former player (he sounds young, and not like a veteran TV/radio man) -- noted how Ryan grunted when he threw his fastball. "Nolan only grunts on the fastball. As a hitter, if you can pick up on that, you know it's a fastball. He doesn't grunt when he throws a curveball."

But then there's the matter of physics -- light travels faster than sound, so by the time the batter hears the grunt, it's too late to catch up to the fastball.

Looking back on the 1992 Hall of Fame Game

Like most of baseball, I went about my day last Monday as I normally would. I didn't take any time out of my day to visit MLB.com and listen to the coverage of the Hall of Fame from Cooperstown, the annual exhibition that used to be played the Monday following Induction Weekend. The Cubs and Padres were to play, but Mother Nature had other ideas and washed out the game.

At first, I didn't care. It didn't bother me that an exhibition game I had barely paid attention to over the past 15 years wouldn't be played anymore. It wasn't until I read Tom Verducci's "Requiem for the Game" that I realized that I will miss it, even if I rarely acknowledged it was there.

The truth is, the Hall of Fame Game has changed twice recently and wasn't what it was in 1992, when my family and I saw the Mets and White Sox face off following the inductions of Tom Seaver and Rollie Fingers. The first was in 1997, when Interleague Play came along and made a Mets-White Sox or any other NL-AL matchup less unique. As a result, baseball relaxed its rules on choosing one team from each league for the game, bringing the Dodgers and Padres to town that year. (In 1986, the Royals and Rangers played the first intraleague HOF Game, but it didn't become a frequent occurrence until 1997.) The second change was in 2003, when the Phillies (with minor league lefty Cole Hamels on the mound) and Rays played on June 16, moving the game off of Induction Weekend.

I was 15 in the summer of '92, so there was no widespread internet, let along blogs (we called them "diaries" or "journals" back then), so I don't know that I've ever written down my memories of that weekend. I do have video of it. We borrowed a camera from a family friend and my buddy Matt and I used it to record some of the induction (it was the first held at the Clark Sports Center on the outskirts of Cooperstown, instead of at the actual Hall of Fame, because of renovations there) and our tour through the museum. Not adept in video editing -- and, again, not having the computer technology of "digital" and "iMovie" -- we created a soundtrack by ... fastening headphones to the camera's microphone with rubber bands, and playing a cassette tape in a Walkman. We called it "Coop '92," and I really need to find out where that is and watch it again.

But as for the HOF Game itself, we hadn't been able to purchase tickets before they sold out, so my mom volunteered to go over to Doubleday Field the morning of the game and wait on line for standby tickets, should any be released because of cancellations or whatever causes people to pass up an opportunity to see Major League players at a town ballfield. While she waited, Matt and I continued to explore town, particularly shops selling baseball cards, and walked around the ballpark. We met up with Mom at a designated time (because, say it with me, no cellphones then, either) and she announced that she had secured three tickets. That's all we needed, because my sister and Matt's had no interest in going, and since they were two years younger, couldn't really be allowed to roam Cooperstown by themselves for three hours, so my dad volunteered to chaperone them.

While standing in line, my mom took note of all the uniformed Mets personnel who walked past her on their way from the dugout to the only men's room at the ballpark, a park-like facility with concrete floors and, I imagine, troughs that was accessible only from the parking lot. I think she was most excited to see Howard Johnson. She was also soon approached by a man who had come to turn in three tickets he couldn't use. There were two pairs (probably a purchase limit) that weren't together, and his wife would be sitting in one of the seats, so after chatting up my mom, he felt comfortable having her sit with his spouse. "It's better than turning them in and not knowing what she'll get," he said. So Mom became friends for an afternoon with some guy's wife, and Matt and I sat only a few rows up from the field down the left-field line.

Bobby Jones -- that would be Bobby J. Jones, the Mets' first-round draft pick the previous year -- was called up from nearby Double-A Binghamton to make the start, and he carried a perfect game into the seventh inning. He and two other hurlers combined on the only one-hitter in HOF Game history. The Mets won, 3-0, on a solo home run by Chico Walker (who, until I looked up the history of this game, I didn't not recall as a Met for a single at-bat) and a two-run double by Daryl Boston, both of which happened in the eighth inning.

Boston played left field, so we saw a lot of him -- particularly late in the game, when he started acknowledging us and getting the crowd along the line to chant his name. He and right fielder Dave Gallagher were engaged in a competition to see who could get the fans on his side of the field to cheer his name louder. I'm pretty sure we won it for Daryl.

Other than wanting to see Seaver (he ignored me on his way into the ballpark -- my closest chance at getting his autograph in my lifetime) and White Sox third baseman Robin Ventura (who won the pregame home run derby, which I don't remember, so we might not have had our tickets yet), I don't recall what my expectations were for the game. (It wasn't the best of Mets teams, though they did have a former Yankee starting at second base -- Willie Randolph.) I marveled at the houses just beyond the outfield fence, clearly the best real estate in Cooperstown, I believed then -- before I became a homeowner and would have to be concerned about things like broken windows. But if you're going to have your windows broken by an errant baseball, wouldn't you rather it be from someone in a Major League uniform than the neighbors' kid? And before the game, when Matt and I were for some reason separated inside the ballpark, he recounted a scene he witnessed along the right-field line, when the Mets' John Franco took a liking to one fan's hat commemorating the game and traded his team-issued on-field cap for the fan's commemorative lid. Even though he was a Yankees fan, I think Matt felt a little disappointment that Franco didn't notice his hat first and offer the trade.

But now those moments are gone forever. As Verducci and Hal Bodley lamented, the HOF Game was an important link of baseball's present and past. Both writers alluded to the big-shot player who expresses disdain at having to trek to upstate New York during the middle of the season, yet once he arrives and gets a tour and sees the quaint field nestled in the center of the quaint town, reverses course and voices his appreciation at having made the trip.

It's a shame the game has to die, but I can see why. Verducci touches on all of them. But why can't baseball fix it, instead of pulling the plug? The NFL has it right, but making the game a preseason exhibition tied to its inductions. But baseball can't have a preseason game in upstate New York, not when local residents haven't put away their shovels for the season yet in late March. What MLB could do is extend the All-Star break by a day -- some teams get both the Wednesday and Thursday after the game off anyway -- and stage the game on that Thursday. Every team would be off, making scheduling easier. Or simply choose from among the teams that have that extra day after the Midsummer Classic. There are only four games -- that's 22 teams off -- playing that day this year.

Baseball keeps moving further and further away from the small-town, easily accessible game it was long before I was born. Many of these changes are natural, necessary and inevitable. But some of them -- like bringing the big stars of the Cubs and Padres, or any other combo of teams, to a small town in upstate New York where the game is celebrated year-round -- don't have to be made. It's a shame that this one was.

Barry and the Babe

We're nearly there. One more long ball, and for just the second time in 86 years, Babe Ruth will move on the list of the all-time home run rankings. He took over the top spot in 1921 and didn't relinquish it until 1974; since then, he's been at No. 2. Two weeks from today marks the 71st anniversary of the Babe's final home run, one of three he hit in a marvelous afternoon at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field.

If Barry Bonds is going to do it -- and it certainly seems inevitable at this point -- maybe he can wait two weeks and do it on the anniversary of Ruth's own 714th blast. Giants manager Felipe Alou said that Bonds will play every game of this homestand, which runs through Sunday, to give him a chance to hit one or two home runs at home. The Giants then head to Houston for three games, without a day off, which means Bonds will likely sit. They then have three games at Oakland -- where Bonds can DH all three games, if necessary -- before returning home for six games spanning Memorial Day weekend that include the May 25 anniversary of Ruth's last three home runs.

This whole controversy over Bonds is a shame, as many have written already (and I've loved all of Tom Verducci's stuff on the subject, particularly his appropriately terse responses to some inane mailbag questions this week), because we should be enjoying this, celebrating it, bringing up Babe and looking at this in the context of one slugger vs. another, with 70 years between them. The debate should be about which one was the greater hitter -- and perhaps the greatest hitter -- of all-time, not which one did more with his own ability vs. which one had more artificial help.

I find it hard to believe anyone can look at Bonds' career -- his statistics, his baseball cards, his choice of friends and trainers -- and not think that the evidence is overwhelming. Everyone still wants him caught red-handed with the smoking gun: a positive drug test. That's being a little naive. Bonds, of course, admitted to using steroids when he testified before the grand jury; he just claimed he thought what he was being given were natural products rather than artifically produced enhancers.

Much as Ruth never got what he wanted at the end of his career -- a chance to manage -- Bonds won't get what he wants, which is to be considered the greatest player ever, someone who is cheered at each stop around the National League when he makes his farewell tour. Mark McGwire left the game a beloved slugger, but if he were still playing today, he'd be under the same suspicion and the same scrutiny. Bonds will get a warm send-off in San Francisco in his final at-bat, but if he wants that to be his last on-field memory as a player, he'll have to make sure his final game comes at AT&T Park.

Just how much more can he take? Clearly, the scrutiny and pressure is affecting him. He hides from the media, never moving faster than after a game, when he showers and dresses and leaves the clubhouse before the media arrives. He reluctantly answers questions after games in which he hits a home run; then he refuses to sign the ball that became his 713th career homer when a fan from Philadelphia asks, as Verducci reported. The fact that this 25-year-old soldier might soon be deployed to Iraq might prompt some players to take the guy to dinner after the game, or fly him out to San Francisco for a game. The most Barry can do is pose for a photo with the guy.

What happens when Bonds gets 714 and 715 in the next week or so? This is a guy who looks horrible on the field, like the boss trying to squeeze in a few innings in the company softball game, just to appear young and virile to his employees. He aches with every step and leaves games early, when even a five-run lead is big enough to take him out after he bats in the seventh inning. He'll play more on this homestand -- including this afternoon, after a night game yesterday -- as Alou tries to give him the cocoon of the hometown fans for the backdrop of his historic homer, but what will that mean for the trip to Houston and Oakland? It's been protocol for Bonds to sit out a day game after a night game, but on Monday he sat out a night game after a night game, presumably because his knee did not respond well to an overnight cross-country flight home after Sunday night's game in Philadelphia.

When does it all become too much for him? I actually wondered this week if he might hang it up just days after he hits No. 715, if he's finally had enough. His agent came out this week and said he expects Bonds to play somewhere in 2007, but how realistic is that? If he finishes this season with 725 home runs, mimicking the number on his uniform, might he call it a career at that nice, round number? That would mean a total of 17 home runs this season, just barely half of the 30 he would need in 2007 to tie Aaron. He hasn't had a multiple-home run game since Aug. 29, 2004, a span of 72 games in which he's played.

If this is Bonds' final year, that gives us five more years to ponder and debate, ruminate and reconsider, because then all of this will come up again as he's placed on the Hall of Fame ballot. We'll get the first inkling of an indication as to how that might play out in January, when the Hall of Fame announces the Class of 2007 -- for which Mark McGwire is eligible for the first time.

Bonds has had a Hall of Fame career. The only question is how good was he on his own?

Hall of Famers?

I'm lazy. Or busy. Or both. In any case, I need to gear up for spring training and get back to some posting.

But I'm taking the easy way out right now. I want to get something up before the Hall of Fame announcement in a little over an hour, so here are my quick-hit predictions.

IN:

Jim Rice
Goose Gossage
and, borderline (either just in or just out), Bruce Sutter and Andre Dawson

JUST OUT:

Don Mattingly
Jack Morris
Bert Blyleven

OFF THE BALLOT:

Gary DiSarcina
Alex Fernandez
Gregg Jefferies
Hal Morris
Walt Weiss

New Negro league candiates for the Hall

WAY too long since I've posted.

Must ... update ... more ...

With the Baseball Hall of Fame announcing that it is considering players from the Negro leagues and before for enshrinement, New Jersey may see itself represented further in Cooperstown. Among the Negro leaguers are one-time Newark Eagle William Bell Sr., former manager of the Newark Dodgers and Eagles Dick Lundy, Eagles manager Raleigh "Biz" Mackey, Eagles co-owner Effa Manley, and Eagles player and manager George Suttles.

A partial and by-no-means complete (as far as I can tell) list of Hall of Famers with Jersey ties include:

Those born here
Goose Goslin
Billy Hamilton
Joe Medwick

Those who died here
Dan Brouthers
Larry Doby
Harry Wright

Those who played here
Yogi Berra (Newark Bears)
Monte Irvin (Newark Eagles)
Ray Dandridge (Newark Eagles)
Leon Day (Newark Eagles)
Willie Wells (Newark Eagles)

I'm hoping to do more research on the history of New Jersey baseball, but I've got so many other various little side projects like that, I don't know when I'm going to get to it. Perhaps once I become independently wealthy and no longer have to work a regular job.

Craig Biggio, 300-home run hitter?

With his home run in the first inning tonight, Craig Biggio now has 251 in his career. He has 16 this season after hitting 24 last year. Say he finishes with the same number as last year, two dozen. That's 259 in his career. Sure, he may be turning 40 in December, but he's in good shape and he's healthy. He could play another two years. Can he hit 41 home runs in two years? I think so, playing at Minute Maid Park, with its 315-foot left-field porch.

Does that make him the least likely 300-home run hitter in baseball history? Probably. He's 5'11", 185 -- if you believe his bio. It's probably added an inch, and maybe 10 pounds. It also locks him into the Hall of Fame, to which he probably will earn entry anyway.

Round and round he goes, where Beltran lands nobody knows

Nearly five years ago, Dennis Quaid and Jesus — OK, fine, James Caviezel — starred in a baseball movie that wasn't a baseball movie. Frequency was a father/son tale using the Mets' 1969 world championship as a backdrop. Now, another screenwriter has found inspiration in the other Mets championship, the one they won in 1986.

Game 6, which will premiere later this month at the Sundance Film Festival, appears to be another baseball-as-backdrop movie, despite what the title will have you believe. It also may turn out to be more of a Red Sox movie than a Mets movie, according to that aforelinked description on the Sundance site. (And at least this one won't have the in-production backlash that the sight of Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore filming on the field during Boston's celebration in St. Louis has sparked. About that: depending on how it's edited, how can that be believable? Fans don't rush the field anymore these days — the last I can remember was when the Mets clinched the division in '86 — and when they do, a lot more than two make it to the infield.) But with Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr., Bebe Neuwirth and Catherine O'Hara, it's got to be picked up and distributed by somebody.

* * *

My gut feeling on Carlos Beltran right now is that he'll go back to Houston. I even signed a petition shortly after the Astros' season ended to plead that he remain in Texas ... before the Mets became a player, of course. I just wanted him to stay far, far away from the Bronx. Obviously, we'll know if he's going back there within he next 31 hours, since he has to sign with the Astros by midnight tomorrow.

But I'm still wary of the Yankees. I won't buy that they're out of it until 1.) Scott Boras names the teams who have made offers, and the Yanks aren't one of them, or 2.) Beltran shows up at a press conference and dons a hat that's not a Yankee hat or a jersey that's not a Yankee jersey.

Murray Chass of The New York Times speculated today that George Steinbrenner might have simply told his staff to say the Yankees had no interest, intending to swoop in at the 11th hour. It was Chass, I believe, who first started the talk last weekend that the Yankees had no interest, and Buster Olney of ESPN.com (and/or The Magazine) has also said he thinks they are going to take a pass. But my thinking is that if they really had made the decision to go after Beltran but try to do it quietly, it would get out somehow, despite Steinbrenner's wishes. There is only a certain number of people who can keep a secret about something before the media gets a hold of it.

There's also been some discussion lately that Beltran's not really worth what Boras is demanding. But a look at the list of similar players (scroll down below the boxes for "Appearances on Leaderboards and Awards") shows one Hall of Famer in Dave Winfield, another power/speed outfielder in Bobby Bonds, and a borderline Hall candidate in Andre Dawson. Most telling, as Tim Kurjian points out in that first link, is that his walks have increased in the last four years while his strikeouts have dipped to the point where he's nearly at a 1:1 ratio. He most likely won't hit 40 home runs as a Met, but he'll get on base and run, and he'll cut off so many doubles in the gap at Shea.

The Mets would probably have to overpay to get him, but that's what they need to do. I'd be happy with it, but I just don't know if it's going to get to that. Houston's my gut feeling, but if we haven't heard of it by Sunday morning, there very well could be a new No. 15 in Queens.

Unless, you know, the Yanks are playing possum.

* * *

Wade Boggs will go into the Hall wearing a Red Sox cap. It wasn't really too hard to predict. It's the right move by the Hall.

Doug Mientkiewicz, however, doesn't understand the concept. He's not giving the Red Sox the ball he caught from Keith Foulke for the final out of the World Series. (Of course, if Foulke were smart enough on his feet, he would've run the ball to first base himself for the final out, keeping it in his glove the whole time.) It would be one thing if Mientkiewicz came up with the Red Sox or maybe even played with them the whole season. I'm more inclined to think that Nomar Garciaparra has more of a claim to the ball than Mientkiewicz, who was only in the game as a defensive replacement. (Apparently Terry Francona learned from John McNamara what can happen when you leave a first baseman in for the final out for sentimental reasons.)

* * *

Since I love to make predictions, here are my quick picks for the NFL's wild-card weekend:

I would like to see the Jets win, but I think with the way they struggled at the end of the season, with Chad Pennington's recovering shoulder and with San Diego at home, it won't happen. Might come close, they might cover, but I think it's the Chargers, 28-24.

In Seattle, I don't like either team. I could go with St. Louis, because they've had the Seahawks' number; or I could go with the home team, because can one 8-8 team beat another three times in one season? If Shaun Alexander can control the clock, Seattle probably wins. But I like St. Louis' weapons and scoring potential as a whole, so I say the Rams, 31-26.

On the semi-frozen tundra of Lambeau Field (gameday high expected to be 35 degrees), I don't have the same misgivings about the Packers-Vikings divisional matchup threepeat. Minnesota has won something like two of its last 12 games outdoors. Daunte Culpepper may do The Roll after a touchdown to Randy Moss, but it's Brett Favre and the Packers who roll on, 38-30.

I'm a fan of the scoring this opening weekend, aren't I? I'm probably not the only one. Take away everything else in the Indianapolis-Denver matchup on Sunday except for three things: Peyton Manning, Jake Plummer and the RCA Dome. Is there any way you can envision Plummer beating Manning inside? Neither can I: Colts, 42-21.

One hour until the announcement

Quickly, for the record, my Hall of Fame Class of 2005 predictions:

Wade Boggs, 3B, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He goes in with a Red Sox cap.

Ryne Sandberg, 2B, Chicago Cubs. He came close last year and this year probably puts him over.

I'm not sure what to think of the three closers who are regularly debated: Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter and Lee Smith. I think of them in that order, in terms of strength of case, because they were the pioneers of the closer as we know him today. They pitched two or three innings each time out, 70 games a year. It's going to be hard for today's generation of one-inning closers to get there, but we'll leave that discussion for their own retirements.

But for Gossage, Sutter and Smith, I don't know if this is the year. It will be somewhere down the line, but not 2005.

Pete Rose's anniversary

In my various meanderings through the internet, I've been known to sign up for a newsletter or two. I've got several e-mail accounts, and I learned years ago never to use my primary address for any orders, subscriptions or other sites requiring an e-mail address for membership or entry, much in the same way that I've never entered the digits to my debit card anywhere online.

So in one of those newsletters, a daily one that features a "This Date In History" section, an erroneous listing for today included:

July 27
1940 Bugs Bunny makes his official debut in the Warner Bros. animated cartoon "A Wild Hare."
1942 Peggy Lee records her first hit record Why Don't You Do Right.
1984 Pete Rose passes Ty Cobb's record with his 4,192nd hit.

It's that last one I found interesting. I didn't seem to remember hearing much about it lately, so I was surprised that it would creep up so quickly. There was no sign of it on MLB.com, but then I got to thinking about how ol' Pete is banned from baseball and the Reds wouldn't be allowed to have him present for any 20th anniversary celebrations they might hold, so maybe Bud and baseball were just ignoring this feat.

Though I was only 8 in July 1984, I've taught myself so much about the history of baseball. The year 1984 didn't seem right to me. Sure enough, a few clicks later, I found the right date: Sept. 11, 1985. So we've still got nearly 14 months until the 20th anniversary of Pete's 4,192nd hit, but I've already started writing this essay in my head, so why wait until then. I'll just link back to it when the time comes.

Pete Rose's banishment from baseball is sad. It's sad he brought it upon himself, that's for sure, and sad that he fell victim to a disease that affects thousands of anonymous Americans, let alone the famous ones. However, he's had his opportunities to improve his standing in the eyes of Baseball -- the suits on Park Avenue and downtown Milwaukee -- and he's blown many of those. With another Hall of Fame weekend behind us, we're reminded of Pete Rose's ticking clock of eligibility. He retired as a player in 1986 and would have become eligible for the Hall in 1991. Players only have 15 years on the ballot, then they're turned over to the Veterans Committee, which now includes more players -- and Hall of Famers -- than it once did. So ol' Pete has less than two years to try to get on the writers' ballot and get the votes of those scribes and broadcasters who grew up watching him, who covered him, who will look more at his play on the field and less at his disrespect for the game off it.

Taking away his gambling indiscretions for a moment -- as hard as that is to do -- it will be a shame if, on Sept. 11, 2005, the Reds celebrate the 20th anniversary of the new Hit King without Pete Rose making an appearance at Great American Ballpark. He probably will, though. If Bud could relent enough to allow him on the field in Atlanta 1999 for the introduction of the All-Century Team, he'll probably jump at another chance to embrace baseball's history and another milestone moment and allow him onto the field in Cincinnati next September. It would be a shame if they didn't. It was certainly a great moment in Reds history, and I wouldn't want to see the anniversary pass as quietly as it seemed to today.

Scrolling through the lists of baseball's all-time leaders, the players at the top of each column are either in Cooperstown or have their ticket issued -- though guys like Barry Bonds and Rickey Henderson still have their arrival dates left blank. But when those living legends meet again each July in Cooperstown, there's no photo ops with the Strikeout King and the Hit King, no pairings of the man with the most home runs and the man with the most hits.

The part of me that loves baseball's history wants Pete Rose to be there. As I near my 30s and the players inducted into the Hall of Fame each July become more and more familiar -- guys like Dennis Eckersley and Paul Molitor, who played recently enough to overlap my first experiments with fantasy baseball -- I can't imagine the likes of Chili Davis, Fred McGriff or Rafael Palmeiro embossed in brass on a plaque.

But Pete Rose I can see there. I don't know if he should be, though. He was a rat for gambling on baseball, but he had a chance to come clean about it and he chose to lie, and to hide. He exiled himself and now he's trying to apologize his way back into the party.

It's probably too late.